Trump, South Korea’s Moon agree to boost defenses

U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed to strengthen their defense posture amid rising tensions with North Korea, the White House said on Friday.

Trump and Moon, who met on Thursday, committed to strengthen their “combined defense posture, including through South Korea’s acquisition and development of highly advanced military assets” and “agreed to the enhanced deployment of U.S. strategic assets in and around South Korea on a rotational basis,” the White House said in a statement.

That’s the way forward, guys, keep tightening the screws on a man you believe is mentally unstable, to the same extent as the incumbent in the White House, and you are thus pushing the process in the right direction, i.e. you are begging for war. Keep going.

Plasma Dawn

Tightening the screws is not always a good strategy but it has worked in the past. The USSR economy collapsed under an immense military budget that was straining to keep up with the US and NATO and it brought about the end of the Cold War, the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and USSR, and the breakup of USSR. Not a bad investment considering not a single shot was fired.

Both leaders are mentally unstable and equally dangerous, no doubt about it. The only hope is that neither one is suicidal, neither at the personal nor the national level.

Mr Magoo

The sad truth is KJU is prioritising his military budget over feeding his nations starving people.
Forcing him to spend more equals more suffering for those poor souls.

Plasma Dawn

True, but every person and every nation have a breaking point. Every birth is painful and so may be the birth of a free and sane North Korea. Yet, what comes after the birth makes it worthwhile, definitely so to the future generations.

Paranam Kid

KJU is forced to fight for survival because the behaviour of the US, which did not need to get involved in the Korean war in the 1st place other than for imperialist reasons. The US has subsequently kept threatening Nk with either war, leadership decapitation, or even total destruction. The latter was already carried out during 1950-53, when the US bomber pilots eventually did not know where to drop their bombs anymore, there was nothing left standing, so they dropped them in the sea.

Plasma Dawn

I know it is an inconvenient truth, but in 1950 the US and other nations intervened in Korea at the request of the UN, the very UN you put on a lofty pedestal when it issues resolutions and [retracted] papers detrimental to Israel. It took place after the North invaded the South and almost totally defeated it before the international forces intervened,

Paranam Kid

Indeed the North invaded, but, unlike Israel Palestine where the picture is always presented black-white, it was a bit more nuanced. Now, I know it is more comfortable to swallow what daddy government tells you, but here is the real low-down.

As early as 1945 the American commander in the U.S. zone, General John Hodge, “declared war” on communists whom he identified with all hostile nationalists tied to Kim Il-Sung or not. Americans employed Japanese trained armed police who violently repressed those who resisted this extreme affront. The UN had called for a plebiscite throughout the peninsula but the north refused to participate primarily because the elections in the south were forcibly controlled by American occupation forces and their southern minions and voting was limited to landowners and taxpayers thereby eliminating most ordinary peasants and factory workers, the very people who would have voted for reunification under Kim (shades of Vietnam). Shortly after the government of Syngman Rhee was inaugurated as a result of this provocative and incendiary election a major revolt broke out on the southern island of Jeju. The response by the new extremely right-wing government, was swift and exterminative. Approximately 30,000 South Koreans were slaughtered.The Jeju massacre, as it came to be known, and numerous similar atrocious purges, were among the principal motivations that led Kim Il-Sung to attempt to unify Korea by force and remove the American client government in the south. In June 1950 Kim’s forces crossed the 38th parallel, the artificial border decided in Washington and agreed by the Soviets thus precipitating the three-year long Korean War that resulted in the deaths of three million Koreans and nearly 50,000 Americans

But Rhee’s government had been attempting to cross the border itself and on the very day that the war began South Korean forces also attacked the north. Which incursion was first is still debated. At first the North Koreans swept in and almost unified the peninsula on their terms. The American press demonized to the northern Koreans seeking to reunify what had for at least a millennium an integrated, single nation as “hordes” and “barbarians” illegally invading a separate and independent nation. Then calling upon the UN to authorize a military response by forces largely composed of American troops Truman intervened in this incipient civil war and thereby initiated a large scale and utterly cataclysmic one.

Paranam Kid

Nice try with your usual BS, but the USSR did not collapse because of tightening the screws through economic sanctions.

Plasma Dawn

You either completely misunderstood or you read what you wanted to read. I never claimed the USSR collapsed because of tightening the screws through economic sanctions. Still, it collapsed because its economy could not support its immense military budget required to keep up with the US and NATO. Thus, it may be possible to bring about the collapse of NK’s regime through sheer economic pressure, direct and indirect.

Paranam Kid

Thanks to Russia and China, it ended up with so many loopholes as to be well-nigh meaningless. The resolution imposes trade restrictions, for example, but rejects a U.S. bid to allow outside powers to enforce them by stopping and inspecting North Korean ships on the high seas or by forcing down aircraft suspected of carrying contraband. Where the U.S. had pushed for a total energy embargo, it allows oil imports to continue at current levels. It permits North Korean workers in foreign countries to continue sending hard currency back home, a practice the United States had hoped to stop. And it rebuffs U.S. demands for a ban on the North Korean national airline, Air Koryo.

Considering how adept China, Russia, and others have gotten at evading previous sanctions, it’s hard to believe they’ll have much trouble dealing with the latest round. As permanent Security Council members, Russia and China have veto power over enforcement, moreover, so it’s highly unlikely that they’ll allow it to do anything to stop them from carrying on precisely as they please.

They’ll enforce sanctions when they feel like it and look the other way when they don’t.

In other words, it’s a face-saving gesture with little real substance.

Plasma Dawn

The Rolling Stones: You Can’t Always Get What You Want. The sanctions are a beginning. In addition, China has already instructed its banks not to do business with NK and will restrict oil and other energy supplies starting next week.. Time will tell.

Paranam Kid

You still don’t get it, do you: you don’t know what those instructions to its banks are, and in the context of what those ” mean, as “sanctions” as I described above, they are likely to be mild.

As for “time will tell”: really? 65 years is not enough? Oh sorry, I see what you mean: time will tell that more of the same that isn’t working will work is a.k.a. insanity. I agree, and it fits Trump’s mental state.

Plasma Dawn

Last Monday Chinese banks received an official document stating they must halt financial services and loans to new and existing NK customers. Look it up if you have any doubts.

Yes, time will tell. It took more than 70 years for the USSR to collapse, yet collapse it did. NK’s friends and allies in this world are scarcer than a hen’s teeth. And whether you like it or not, there has been no more war between NK and SK for the past 65 years, so something had to be working right in the approach to NK sanctions and all.

Paranam Kid

1. The USSR did not collapse because of sanctions, there were none.
2. No war on the Korean peninsula is not due to sanctions, but due to a combination of restraint, China’s & Russia’s presence.

I understand you need to make up alternative facts to suit your narrative, your BS is running dry again.

Plasma Dawn

You are hopeless in your understanding my previous comments or your short-term memory is badly failing. I have already patiently explained to you that what mattered in the USSR example was not the reason for its economic failure but that the USSR’s collapse was caused by a failing economy. Yet, you keep repeating like a broken record that the USSR did not collapse because of sanctions. There can be many different reasons why a country’s economy fails in the long run and sanctions may be one of them. You better get this into your head because I will not repeat the above explanation again.

There many reasons why there hasn’t been a war since 1953 and you have not enumerated them all. For instance, conveniently omitted by you were SK’s modern army and the presence of the US forces and its commitment to deter any aggression by NK.

Paranam Kid

Oh, I see, that simply means you are comparing apples with horses because it suits your narrative. I sincerely apologise for giving you too much credibility, thinking you meant to compare apples with apples.

I promise I won’t give you that credibility again 😉

Plasma Dawn

Speaking of horses, one can bring a horse to the water but cannot make it drink. I am not responsible for your lack of comprehension, analytic capacity, and the ability to have a broader perspective and not drown in the details. Be free to see your simplistic and morbidly distorted world in black and white but count me out in this thread.

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